Diocesan News
Archbishop Neill's Christmas message
CHRISTMAS MESSAGE 2004
The Most Revd Dr. John Neill
Archbishop of Dublin, Bishop of Glendalough,
Primate of Ireland and Metropolitan
The wonder of the Christmas story of the birth of the infant Lord with choirs of angels, worshipping shepherds and gift-carrying wise men quickly gives way to the account of the flight into Egypt the Holy Family becoming refugees in a strange land. Joseph and Mary had to flee with Jesus so that his life would be spared. Infants were being cruelly slaughtered in Judea.
The people and the causes that stir our hearts at Christmas don't all disappear from the scene at the end of the month. Throughout December and even long before that, everything is geared to Christmas there is a sense of excitement and of expectancy all around. Most people are that bit more friendly and feeling quite generous if they can afford to be! All this is good. But what then?
Ireland of the Welcomes must take a deep breath. Does the welcome extended really reach beyond those well-heeled returning emigrants and the traditional big-spending tourists from the Western world? What about those who come to our shores with little or nothing? There is a price to be paid in being a welcoming and multi-cultural society. We have to be willing to learn about the way others live and think. We have to go out of our way to understand that many coming to Ireland today have been traumatised, whether by violence, political oppression or poverty. Unless bridges of understanding are built, then the result will be ghettos defined by fear and violence.
The Lord who lived as a refugee child in Egypt said years later back in his own country, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me When people were puzzled, he simply replied Just as you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me.
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